Hi there I'm pretty new to the forums and the hole ARG thing but from reading a lot in here
and just finishing Halo1, Halo2 (again) and read GoO one idea came to me...

What if the Forerunners life was silicon based? So they where more like robots like the
Monitors or even like a A.I.?
Maybe they found life like on earth and thought that that would be the next evolution they
would have to take.
So they created something that could bring life to something "dead". So they become
something between Machine and something Human like. Maybe similar to a Spartan?!
That would explain why John is named a reclaimer. (i think the Monitor only called him that
and no other, right? Beside of the Spartans III´s but they are "build" differently than
a Spartan II )
Also that could explain the wired new sound in Cortanas voice and here struggle we can see
in the new trailer... maybe she is infected now?

That also would explain why the Forerunners are dead (if they died anyways). Because
they infected themselves with the flood to get to life. So they had to destroy themselves to stop
the infection.

So they constructed the Halo´s seven of them. Maybe there are seven Ark´s aswell?
Prophets, Elite, Brutes, Grunts, Jackals, Humans and maybe a race we don´t know yet
ore for the not infected Forerunners? Why do i think there are more than only one Ark?
Because the Dyson Sphere entrance in GoO is described like what we can see in last years
E3 trailer. I don´t have a quote here but it immediately hit me when i read it.
Anyways, they saved the life they found. At least i can´t find a other way to explain how
we could be so advanced in that short oft time. (thinking of the 100,000 years from the last
firing of the Halo´s witch should have killed us too)

Ok all wild guesses here and i apologize for everything that maybe has already been sad here
in the forum. Just couldn´t read everything
Also i´m sorry for my bad english here and there, it´s not my native tongue so please forgive me ^^
Hopefully that wasn´t a complete waist of time for you to read

sorry m8, but there are a few holes in your theory and a few things that need to be corrected:
1) Miranda Keyes- regular Human, called Reclaimer; Sgt. Marvin Mobuto - regular Human called Reclaimer.
2)Spartans are not cyborgs, they are genetically enhanced human beings.
3)There is very little different between a Spartan 2, and 3, aside from 3's got less training time, and had a mixture added to the genetic tequila mix that caused thier brain to de- evolve (better explanation in GoO Pages 102 and 399- 341*) *My copy of GoO is larger than a normal paper back, so the pages might not be exact.
4)At the end of H2, cortana was in teh clutches of the gravemind. also, she is a "middle age" smart AI, but shortened her own lifespan by absorbing all the forerunenr and halo data in H1. in other words- she's probably going rampant
5)based on data scatered all over the place (someone else do references) the forerunners were fighting to annailate the flood, the reason the flood were on the halo's was for study to find a way to defeat them.
6)not sure what you'er saying with 7 arks, but the dyson sphere is different from waht's going on on earth. earth is a natural planet, that contains some crazy forerunner tech. Onyx was made up of sentinels. Im sure humans would of realized thier home planet is made up of robots. plus the nature of the ark is unknown, the "shield worls" was there to protect the reclaimers

ok, now that the record has beeen straightened out (im sure someone is gonna correct me) use this information to correct and expand upon your own theory!

1) That´s a shame... but thanks for the correction here

2) I did not mean like Cyborgs but more like the fusion of Man and Machine.
Like the Gravemind sad:
"This one is machine and nerve,
and has its mind concluded."

3) Exactly thats why the Monitors on Onyx first named the Spartan reclaimer and
then corrected himself. Maybe because of the lesser advanced Mjolnir armor.
(btw. i find it astonishing that you know the page numbers, wow!)
Read so much about the topic in the last few days maybe get me confused. You can
surly straighten that up for me I had in mind that i read the Mjolnir Armor form the
Spartan II´s was somehow interacting with the body of the wearer. Like directly
working with the muscles and so on. And that the Spartan III´s Mjolnir had to
be cheaper so they got rid of some features and gave them stealth instead?!

4) Also a good explanation.

5) Thats ok for me That dosn´t cancel out that the Forerunners first engineered the
flood to advance themselves. LAter on the experiment got out of hand and infected other
life-forms they had to fight. Maybe from that point it mutated or what so ever. So they had
to study what they accidentaly created to stop it form spreading.

6) Ok i get back to the 7 arks in a sec.
I just thought that the discription about the entrance of the dyson sphere with it´s
13 spikes and so on seemed like a good description of what we can see in that trailer.
That sad i took it further thinking that maybe the Planet Onyx is the shield (Shieldworld).
But the inside of the dyson sphere is the actual ark. And btw. nobody had seen it
coming that Onyx wasn´t a actual planet. And nobody has known that this gigantic
Forerunner structure was on earth too. It´s just a lot bigger than the version on
Onyx.
Anyway you needed something to protect all the other life-forms. With the first firing
of the Halo´s 100,000 years ago all life should have died right? But only 100,000 years
later we find out that there are 7(including the Forerunners) highly advanced
spicies in the universe. How could life got to so complex life-forms in just a 100,000 years?
(Btw. 100,000 years in the past we (Humans) where just started to stand straight and building
wooden huts.)

If there was only one ark and we think of it like the bible kind of way we the Humans and
Covenant should have meet bevor the hole war thing.
So thats why i thought they maby 7 arks. One for each complex spices. Anyway the number
7 seems to come up quite often with the Forerunners...

2) so you're refering to the fact that the mjolnir armor works by means of a direct nureal link with the wearer? because the only machinary in a spartan is the Nueral Chips that all USNC personnel have, and the armor

3)the spartan 3's armor didnt have shields, nor did it improve upon the wearers reflexes like the mjolnir, plus teh S3's armor wasnt as resistant to enemy attacks overall. so yes, that's why the S3's had stealth. also, ever since being involved with this ARG, i've had the books sitting next to the computer, so i looked up the pages.

5)check out this topic: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=743

6)the forerunenrs definatly intened the humans to for lack of a better term, "inherit" thier legacy. because 343GS refers to teh covenant as some other species, but talks about the humans as the reclaimers, so he expected contact with humans, but not the covenant. the covenant just happened to develope on planets that showcased the forerunners more. grunts jackals, and possibly brutes aren't even involved in the covenant/ forerunner religous mix, the first 2 being cannon fodder for war, and the brutes being... brutes.
plus the prophets refer to a great journey to sol (earth) maybe beacause that's teh only ark and everyone wants to get on before the flood comes...

So we could bring point 1,2 and 3 together and say it could work out.
But actually it isn't that big of a support to my theory than i hoped
But still...

5) The conclusions in that threat are really nice as well and would rule out
the engineering part of the flood.

So that leaves my theory with quite nothing right?!
Ok last try here. From what i have seen in the games it seems like we never have
found any real Forerunner "living-room". Only factory's and scientific spaces.
Also i can't recall a spaceship beside the thing the MC came back to earth with.
Would i be a drone like life-form i would't need any of those?
In GoO they describe a city like structure... anyways...

About 6. It´s getting a new discussion here for me than intended. Meaning
that the silicon thing doesn't help here at all anymore
It also takes place in the topic link you gave me.
So where does the covenant come from when the forerunners didn't
care about them. The covenant also should have died with the flood in
the first activation of the Halo's. While we assume to be in the ark
that saved humanity? And the Forerunners didn't made it to there
shield-world (Onyx?) in time?
So the covenant also comes form a other galaxy? like the flood?

And one other thing that came up right now in my mind. Even when the
Forerunners kept samples from the flood, for what ever reason, why are
they still intact after the activation of the Halo's? Are the Halo's a blind
spot for whatever the rings are firing? Ore maybe they where in
something like the "coffins" the spartans where in GoO?

i can´t wait to play Halo3 and see what Bungie came up with to
solve all this But maybe they don't even try....


P.S.
Btw. i only have the audiobook of GoO... i should get the books i think

the only reason i can see for teh flood surviving the firing of the halo's is that (something most people forget) the halo were designed to destroy the floods FOOD, not the flood itself. Then the halos are still around because the firing process doesnt destroy them, so looking at the array data recorder found on server 1 of the ARG, we see that the halo's may reset themselves into a dormant state until they are to be used again. or yea, they could be like the coffins from GoO, maybe a mix of the 2.

intil we know the locations of the covenant homeworlds, its good speculation that they live outside the halos destructive radius.

It's an interesting thought, but I don't think it holds up under scrutiny-multiple people (as well as MC there's the 'previous reclaimer' 343 refers to during the library and miranda keyes) have been addressed as 'reclaimer' by 343. Also, it is possible that if the forerunners were silicon based they would have been able to build the halos not to destroy htem. My theory is that a small group of forerunners entered the ark, which probably provides protection against the activation of the halos (think noah's ark) as well as activating them (think ark of the covenant). After the activation of the halos they survived and emerged as the only survivors. The forerunners essentially WERE human in my opinion, so after they emerged they seeded the human race. This would explain the endless parallels b/t what we know about hte forerunners and humanity, as well as 343 and 2401's remarks. The ark (assuming that it is the object in the trailer) is located on the border between current-day tanzania and kenya, which is exactly the area scientists and paleantologists believe humans arose in modern form.

Also, to Admiral Whitcomb, you're right but the reason the flood survived for so long after the activation was because htey were in stasis on at LEAST Alpha Halo, most likely on all of them, for study. It is possible (albeit very unlikely) that there are forerunner-forerunners (as opposed to human-forerunners, i.e. us if my last post is correct) in stasis within the ark or another installation.

omg dude, i was almost thinking the same things as you just a few hours before reading this

but i think the forerunners are organic, and have some collective intelligence, or were similar to each other in a way that an AI wouldnt tell them apart easily. (343's thinking MC was a reclaimer, his comment about the reclaimer asking spark a question 100,000 years ago)

Well, us humans sometimes have a hard time telling strangers of other races apart, it may be impossible for 343GS to tell humans/forerunners apart, and he may not understand the concept of dying from any perspective other than by deliberate acts of violence. One strange thing, however, is how 343GS thinks that the forerunner/reclaimer he spoke to 10k years ago survived the halos' activation.